The Transparent RRSP: Markets Closed

No actions were taken the week of April 10

This week has been a busy one for me. All week, I was getting my tax stuff in order. No, I haven’t filed yet! If you saw what I had to do to get ‘er done, you’d understand why I was procrastinating. If that’s not enough, I’m in the middle of moving.

The dreadful task of packing always necessitates decluttering. Moving forces me to ruthlessly get rid of what I no longer want or need. For the last month, I’d been going through my things and filling up boxes and bags of stuff I knew had no place in our lives anymore.

This drive to purge shifted to my TFSA. Mid-week, JP recommended that I sell two of my stocks he noticed were underperforming for a long time. They were in the money but had barely budged for a year. I sold them, then I sold four more stocks. I had way too many stocks – we’re talking 33 in this one account! I won’t even get into what’s in my US trading account. 33 is more than I could manage, but I guess I just kept buying them the way my brothers buy shoes and ball caps. This is what can happen if you pay very little in commissions per trade.

After we had a decent market last week, it was easy to see who the laggers were in my portfolio. I don’t mind active stocks that go up and even down, but I do mind the stocks that just don’t move at all. A healthy stock needs steady volume and a decent amount of movement. Without enough investor interest, they’re just duds.

Today, the Canadian and US markets were closed for Good Friday. The volume in the markets was low which is typical before a holiday weekend. People either don’t take on new positions or they sell or reduce their positions because they don’t want to hold them over a long weekend.

I feel lighter with fewer stocks to manage (yet I still own quite a few!) and more cash in my account. I might buy more shares of stocks I already own and am happy with. I’ll see what the market does next week and what my stocks do in relation to the market. Now, back to packing!

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